Kerry To Meet Saudi, UAE Officials on Unifying Syrian Opposition

After last week's bombing of a U.N. aid convoy in Syria dealt a death blow to a ceasefire deal in which he had invested all his diplomatic capital with Russia, the U.S. Secretary of State tossed aside a page of notes and looked at Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov across the horseshoe-shaped table in the U.N. Security Council.

ABU DHABI, Nov 23 – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was set to hold talks with senior Emirati and Saudi officials in Abu Dhabi on Monday to find ways to bring Syrian opposition groups together at a conference that will be hosted by Saudi Arabia next month.

Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council – the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China – met earlier this month in Vienna, where they agreed plans to launch formal talks between Assad’s government and its opponents by Jan. 1.

Divisions among Syrian opposition factions, some backed by the West and others by Gulf Arab states, are often cited as one of many obstacles facing diplomatic efforts to end the conflict.

Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Muslim Gulf Arab states have long been major backers of the insurgency against Assad, whom they say must leave power.

The opposition includes the Turkey-based Syrian National Coalition, a political body, and a wide array of rebel groups that are not united in a single military structure and do not answer to any of the political factions.

The Syrian conflict began in 2011 with protests against four decades of Assad family rule. About a quarter of a million people have been killed and 11 million – half the total population – have been driven from their homes.

Tens of thousands of Syrian refugees have fled to Europe in the past few months, which has led to increased efforts by Washington and others to find a political solution to end the war.